AirSWAT – The Series – Chapter 6

When working on a personal project that does not produce any monetary value, high morale and fun replace currency. You must set goals because that’s the only way to get things done in this world, but it is almost more important to make sure you are doing what you’re doing because you like doing it (doing doing doing doing). When morale drops, when the only form of payment from the process lessens, you are effectively cutting your own pay thereby making the entire project more like laborious work than something you care about. And that pay cut will stick around with you for a lot longer than a monetary one if you are invested in the project enough for your immediate emotional well-being to be at stake.

Like this, except it's your soul.

As time has gone on it was apparent that the group’s motivation for the series started to split and shift from the original concept. That’s fine. The evolution of an idea is a vital and necessary part of the process but none of us agreed on where exactly to take it. More business? More craft? More advertising? More rewrites? We never fully agreed on where we wanted it to go as a group (hell, we hardly talked about that until the end) and the rift between our own personal goals for the project caused tension between us.

"I said it should be 'Irish & the Carbombs', not 'Irish & the Car-Bombs'!" "Oh yeah?!"

The second episode (which was actually the third episode we filmed as we shot one out in the desert for promotional material) was much more involved than the first. There were more locations, more props, choreography, potential pyrotechnics (which we soon decided to use CGI for, much to my distaste as I am very willing to sacrifice my friend’s genitals in order for it to “look real”), and many more times when we had to be innovative and change our strategy to get as close to the script as possible with what little time and materials we had. I think what we ended up with was great. Not perfect, but I think that hint of rawness added to the makeshift feel of Irish and the Car-Bombs.

Frankly, this is the best idea I've ever come up with.

But the shooting was no longer as fun as it had been when we started. For the entirety of the second episode, my favorite part was location scouting. We ended up hiking through the wilderness for the entire day and by the end we found a huge mountain of dirt that we took turns jumping off of. That feeling of boys playing in the dirt, a small brotherhood where communication could occur without words, is what the show was really about. Not airsoft, not action, not comedy. It was about the friendship that only guys share, part humor, part bravado, part loyalty, and I think as we started to lose focus on that we started to lose control of the series.

I don’t think this article ended up being any shorter than the last. Dammit, now I’m tired but I don’t know if I can get to slewopjiwa;ovio;3rh o og…………………………………………………………………………………………………….